“Oh, really.”
“Yes, really.”
“So you’re seeing things ‘more clearly’ now that you’re talking to Molly and your uncle is around, huh? What else do Molly and your uncle think?”
“You know what, Mike? I’ve had enough.” I will myself to breathe evenly, but I clutch the door handle for strength. I’ve never been good at endings. “Stop the car.”
“What?”
“Stop the car.” I’m a good hike from home, but I have to get out of the car. I can’t breathe.
He looks at me like I’ve lost my mind but pulls over to the curb. “You’re nuts.”
He could never understand that this is the least nuts I’ve ever felt. “I think we’re done, Mike,” I say softly. Every inch of me, including my lips, is shivering.
“You’re joking, right?”
I unbuckle my seat belt and open the door.
Mike grabs my wrist. “What does Molly know? She doesn’t know me the way you do, Sam…and your uncle, he’s a friggin’ stranger. You know nothing about him…and you’ve been with me over a year!”
“Let go, Mike. This is not a competition!” My heart thumps wildly in my chest as I drop one leg on the ground.
He squeezes my wrist in a vise grip, fury raging behind his eyes. “Fine,” he says. “Get out, then.”
He drops my wrist and I scramble out the door and onto the sidewalk, swallowing huge gulps of icy air. His car screeches away, leaving the smell of burning rubber stinging my nostrils.
Chapter 11
Whether from the cold, or from breaking up with Mike, I’m still shivering like a wet kitten when I get home. The house is dark and silent. There’s a note on the refrigerator: Sammy, going out with Abby and Leslie after Women in Transition group tonight. Chicken fried rice in the fridge. School tomorrow—bed early!
I crumple to the floor, still in my coat, scarf, and hat. Giant sobs rock my body. I press my forehead and palms flat against the tile floor, whimpering as entire threads of who I thought I was liquefy and leave my body as tears. I feel as if deep roots are being cleaved from my depths, without my permission.
When the heaving finally stops, I wipe my eyes and nose with my scarf, curl up like a shrimp, and fall into a deep, merciful sleep.
I wake to Mom shaking me. “Sammy, wake up! Are you okay, sweetheart?”
I look around in a daze and nod my head. “I must’ve fallen asleep.”
“My God! I came in, you were on the floor, face all puffy, curled up like someone had punched you….”
I hold up a hand. “I’m okay, Mom.” I pull myself up, wishing I had thought to fall apart in my room.
“Sammy…” She gently grasps my shoulders. “I know you’re upset with me, and I don’t know what happened tonight.” Her chin quivers. “But please, honey…let me help.”
I lean against the countertop as the scene with Mike replays in my mind. Fat tears roll down my face and splatter onto my socks. “I had a big fight with Mike” is all I can get out without wailing.
“Honey,” Mom says, sounding almost relieved. She wraps her arms around me. “I’m so sorry!”
Feeling her softness, breathing in her scents—cardamom, vanilla, coconut, almond—transports me back to when I was little. When I was teased at school or got a scraped knee on the playground, right here in Mom’s arms was the only place I wanted to be.
I dissolve into her embrace.
“Come,” she says, helping me off with my coat and taking my scarf and hat. “I’ll make us some hot chocolate.” She pulls down the tin of cocoa and puts mugs of milk in the microwave.
I drop gratefully into a chair. Mom’s back is turned as she scoops heaping spoonfuls of cocoa into the milk and stirs. A wave of exhaustion washes over me. It’s too much. Everything has been too much for me to handle on my own. In the past, Mom was always there to nudge me along with a word or a look. We were like a Dynamic Duo, fighting the forces of evil all on our own. And it was fun when I was a kid. But I’m not a kid anymore, and I need a much bigger world.
Mom brings the steaming mugs to the table and sits down across from me. “This’ll help, sweetie.” She warms her hands over her mug. “Do you want to tell me about it?”
I trace the handle of my mug. “I broke up with Mike tonight.”
“Aw, honey, I’m sorry. You’ll go through the normal grief cycle, and it’ll hurt for a while, but I promise you it’ll pass—”
I interrupt, before she gets going full steam on the grief cycle. “There’s more, Mom.”
She wrinkles her brow. “What is it, honey?”
I’m either really stupid, or super, super tired, but something about fighting with Mike tonight, and remembering that time he snickered and said, What is it? Uncle So-deep? Or is it Some-deep? gives me a kind of courage I’ve never felt before. I’m more determined than ever to find out about the tree I branch off of. I’ve heard Mom say that it’s often easier to defend someone you love than to defend yourself, which is probably true. It didn’t bother me as much when people made fun of my last name as it did when Mike made fun of Uncle Sandeep’s name.
I draw an unsteady breath and rally my inner troops. “Your parents,” I begin, “my grandparents…”
She sets her mug down. Her gaze is unwavering as she waits for me to continue.
“I know you never want to have anything to do with them….” I trail off. I don’t know how to say what I really want to say. I don’t know what I want to say. Then I remember what Ms. Lesiak said right after the Trade Center attacks: One baby step at a time. You only need to see as far as your next step.
I take another deep breath and keep going. “I know you had a really tough time growing up with your parents, Mom. But I deserve a chance to get to know my grandparents…and see what they’re like for myself.” I pause again to collect my thoughts.
“I know you’re doing your best and you want to protect me…and you’ve always been good at that…but I just want the chance to…” I sigh in exasperation.
Mom stays silent. Her gaze is unsettling.
I plod on. “Mom, most people never get to know their grandparents because they’re dead, or they live too far away. Mine are alive and well, and only a ninety-minute car ride from here…and I don’t even know them! And now, especially after September eleventh, it just seems so…I don’t know, important for me to know my own family.”
Her eyes flash. “You do know your family, Sammy. We are a perfectly valid family unit.”
Wrong word choice. “I know, I know,” I say quickly. “You always drove that home. Even on Father’s Day, you made sure we were around lots of other ‘families without fathers’ so I didn’t feel different or less than anyone else. I meant to say family as in a family tree—a history. Something that goes back past you, way back…something that I’m a part of.”
She sits quietly for a few moments. “I suppose,” she says finally, “that if I don’t agree, you would go ahead and do it anyway.”
Heat races throughout my limbs. “Um, about that…,” I mumble.
“Hmm?”
I clear my throat. “About that…” I gulp. “I convinced Uncle Sandeep to take me to meet Nani and Nana.”
She stands straight up with her palms on the table. “You what?”
“I know I should’ve asked you, but…”
She purses her mouth, eyes flashing. But she stays quiet.
Still, I flinch as I say, “It was all me. He never would have agreed if Molly and I didn’t ambush him.”
“Molly was with you?”
“We double-teamed him.”
She closes her eyes and throws her head back, crossing her arms in front. “You deliberately went against my wishes,” she says slowly, shaking her head.
“If I hadn’t, I never would’ve met my grandparents!”
She levels her gaze at me again. “You might have, if you’d approached me with some of the maturity you’ve displayed this evening.”
I slump miserably in my seat.
“I didn’t have it before.”
She sits down and taps a fingernail on the table. Then she leans back and covers her face with her hands. “Aaaarrrrghh, Sammy!” she says finally, throwing her hands in the air and sitting up in her chair.
She rests her elbows on the table, looking evenly at me. “I thought I gave you such a strong sense of family. I did everything in my power to make up for the absence of what’s-his-name and my parents….”
I open my mouth to speak, but she holds up a hand to shush me.
“But it’s not enough. I can see that. I wanted to protect you, Sammy, not deprive you. If having a relationship with your grandparents is what you really want…”
I nod my head vigorously. “It is, Mom, it is. I want to have my own relationship with them, even if it’s not perfect, even if it’s awful.”
She stares at the backs of her hands, then looks up to meet my eyes. Her eyes are like little dark wading pools.
“I’ll call them,” she says with resignation.
I can’t believe my ears. Did she just say she’ll call her parents? “Wait—what did you say?”
She chews on her bottom lip. “I can’t promise anything, or make any guarantees….”
“Really?” I couldn’t care less about guarantees or promises—Mom said she’ll call her parents!
“As long as you go into it with your eyes open, Sammy. It’s very important for you to be aware of what you’re dealing with. I’m not sure you fully understand….”
I leap out of my chair and walk around to her side. I kneel down next to her. “I’m ready, Mom. I can take it. And I’m not expecting any miracles.”
Okay, not entirely true. I may not be expecting miracles, but I’m definitely hoping for them. I would love to have the kinds of big, huge, happy family gatherings that are advertised in Hallmark commercials, with lots of Kodak moments in between.
She takes a deep breath and exhales loudly. “Okay, then,” she says, reaching out to cup my chin. “I promised myself after what’s-his-name left that I would not let anyone hurt you. I’m going to stick by that promise, Sammy.” Her voice is tender, but firm.
“I know, Mom.” I lean my cheek into her hand. “But I’m a big girl now. You can’t keep running interference for me.”
She leans back and drains her cocoa. “I’ll work on letting you be. But you have to understand that you are my baby, and when you get hurt, every single ounce of me wants to make it all better, in whatever way I can.”
I give her a teary grin. “I’ll take that.”
When I crawl into bed that night, I wrap the covers tight around myself. I want to go over the conversation I just had with Mom, but I pass out before I can recall a single word.
Chapter 12
I can’t believe Mike would act like that!” Molly says. “And your mom’s gonna call your grandparents? How freakin’ cool is that? I told you she’s a cool mom.”
“Yeah, you did say that.” I take a pair of eyelash curlers out of Molly’s makeup bag.
“Ouch!” Her shout almost kills my eardrum.
We’re in the bathroom before first-period bell on Monday morning.
“Hey!”
“Sorry. Grabbed some skin instead of hair.”
“I can’t believe you’re plucking. You have no eyebrows, MacFadden.”
“I’m shaping them. It says in Cosmo that well-shaped eyebrows can give your face a whole new look.”
“Huh. I saw that on Tyra once too.” I toss the eyelash curler back and pull a tube of lip gloss out of the front pocket of my bag. “I’ve got butterflies—no, dragonflies, Moll. I’m so freaked out about Mom’s call. What if it goes terribly? What if it makes things so much worse than they already are? What if this puts the final nails in the coffin and they hate each other for good?”
“Wow…I hope that’s not how it goes down. It’ll probably be just fine, Wally. At least it’s something, right? They’re not just sitting there not talking…there’s actually going to be some real, live contact.”
I dab lip gloss on my bottom lip and toss it back into my bag. “That’s true. It’s something. But I’m so messed up inside about it.”
“I would be too. Especially with the night you just had. What is up with Mike, anyway?”
My heart falters at the mention of his name. “I don’t know…it could be me, too, I guess.”
“I don’t know, Wall. Ever since he left school he’s been turning into a whole different person.”
I shrug. “I sorta freaked over an episode of The Simpsons.”
“The Simpsons? As in Jessica?”
“No. As in Homer and Bart.”
“Um, not that that gives any guy a reason to be a jerk, but…why would you freak out over Homer and Bart Simpson?”
“Not Homer and Bart—Apu…the Indian guy from the Kwik-E-Mart. The one with the thick accent.”
She’s silent for a long moment. Finally she says, “So what ticked you off?”
I fling my bag over one shoulder. “It’s just not funny to me anymore, I guess.”
Another silence as I hold my breath. Please don’t fight me on this, Molly.
Then she says casually, “I never thought it was funny.”
A smile tugs at the corner of my mouth as I exhale quietly.
“Check out my eyebrows,” she says without skipping a beat. “Don’t they look awesome?”
Mike has left five messages on my cell phone since last night. I finally give in and dial my voice mail after first period. My heart does this stuttering thing and my knees almost give way. So funny how as soon as you have a fight with a guy, all you want to do is climb all over him.
Mike and I have had fights before, but never like this. He’s usually cool. He never gets physical like he did last night. A shudder zips through me as I remember his hand clutching my wrist. And then, Fine. Get out, then.
Tears prick my eyes as I hear his voice. But his messages are not apologies. It’s almost as if a whole night hasn’t passed since his last words to me.
The first one is short: “What goes around comes around, Sam.” What the hell is he talking about?
The next one is more furious. “This is nuts! You break up with me cuz of a TV show? Everything was cool with us till your uncle showed up and you started listening to your friends instead of using your own brain.” Tension seeps into my neck and shoulders. I open the double doors into the school and start walking to my locker. My legs feel like cement blocks.
In the next three messages, his speech is increasingly slurred. There are voices and party noises in the background. “I bet you think you’re too good for me now, don’t you? There’s nothing special about you, Samarrrr…Samarrr the math genius, Samarrrr the good girl, good in school, good at home, good in bed… not!” That message is followed by loud, raucous laughter in the background.
And finally, the last message. “Yeah, so now you got your famuh-lee, huh?” He raises his voice to mimic a woman’s, slurring heavily now, “Oh, I’m seeing everything sooo clearly now, Mike. My family…I’m changing! I’m soooo big and important!” Then he laughs callously. “Who needs you, anyway…you cold…bitch.” He mumbles incoherently for a few more seconds before hanging up.
I hit the end button with rigid, trembling fingers.
As soon as Molly breezes into a seat next to me in calc class, I slide my phone onto her desk, set to Mike’s first message. “Check this out,” I say, jaw set.
Bobbi Lewis walks in as the bell goes off and plunks into a seat on Molly’s other side. Molly smiles and gives her a quick wave as she listens to Mike’s first message. As the messages play, her expression goes from puzzlement to dismay, to outright shock and disgust.
“Un-freaking-believable!” she shouts at the end of Mike’s last message.
Lim stops scribbling on the board and turns. After a quick burst of snickers and hoots, everyone quickly bends their heads over their notebooks again.
“Any more outbursts, and I will come up with a
quick spot quiz that will count toward your final grade,” Lim threatens, turning back to the board.
Molly looks at me, passing my phone back. Her mouth is a perfect O. She tears off a piece of paper from her notebook and quickly scrawls a note, then hands it to me. What an asshole! Unbelievable!
I nod and turn to my notes. The numbers blur in front of my eyes. How could I have missed this part of Mike? Was it always there and I just chose to ignore it? Or is it something new, like Molly says—some weird mean streak that’s oozed into him since he left school?
At the end of class, Bobbi leans across to Molly. “Coming to biology?” she says, laying a hand on Molly’s shoulder.
Molly nods and turns to me. “Want me to walk with you to your next class?”
I nod. “Okay.”
She turns to Bobbi. “I’ll catch up with you.”
We drift with the throngs headed in the direction of my class. I know this will make Molly late for hers, but if it keeps her away from Bobbi Lewis, even if just for a few minutes, it’s worth it.
“I can’t believe that jerk!” she says as soon as we’re out of calc. “Just ignore him, Sammy. He was obviously drunk and out of his mind.”
I swallow the stone in my throat. “I’ve never been called that by a boyfriend before, Moll. Unless it was as a friendly joke. And even then, it feels mean.”
She nods in agreement. “I know. Guys shouldn’t be allowed to use that word, ever. Especially with their girlfriends.”
We stop outside Lesiak’s classroom. Balvir passes us on her way in. “Hey,” she says, snapping her gum.
“Hey,” I say.
Molly nods and turns back to me. “I’ll come to your locker after school, since your track record isn’t the greatest in that area.” She gives me a quick squeeze and takes off in the opposite direction, toward biology with Bobbi.
Lesiak zeroes in on me as soon as I walk in the door. “Samar, do you have something for me?”
Heat rises to my face. “Um, actually, I…uh…don’t, Ms. Lesiak.” I set my backpack down on a desk and shuffle through it. I pull out my notes and walk to her desk.
Shine, Coconut Moon Page 11